


Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

by blarfkey



Series: Come Together [3]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Jealousy Issues, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Violence, Mutant Hate, Papa Bear Erik, Peter Maximoff is an idiot, Peter tries to be a Hero, Raven is a BAMF, Recreational Drug Use, THIS FIC IS MORE LIGHT HEARTED THAN THIS SUMMARY SUGGESTS I PROMISE, Teenage Hormones, Torture, Underage Drinking, apology olympics, dadneto, drunken spats, dumb teenagers, it doesn't work out for him, minor jokes about suicide (during a hangover)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:45:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3725842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blarfkey/pseuds/blarfkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Look man,” Peter says, “you don’t wanna fuck with me, ‘kay? My – my dad’s gonna find me, he’s gonna kick your ass. He’ll kill everyone in the building. He’s fuckin’ nuts.”</p><p>The Man smirks. “Aren’t you a little old to be depending on your old man to save you?”</p><p>Before Peter can give a witty retort, The Man pats his cheek and leaves. </p><p>No one is going to come for him.</p><p>He is going to die here.</p><p>Alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

**Author's Note:**

> So I wanted to be done with this fic a month ago, but let me tell you: nothing is a bigger free-time eater than freaking student teaching. Especially during Smarter Balance test prep. Ugh.
> 
> I put this in the tags, but I will also warn you here that this fic contains a small joke about suicide and a non-graphic torture/death scene. But I promise the whole fic is not super dark and depressing, and even the bad part still has Peter's witty commentary. 
> 
> Also, one reader asked if Erik is demi-sexual in this universe and I am happy to tell everyone that he very much most certainly IS. That's always been my headcanon for him. :)

After about a month or so, Peter starts to think Operation Gay Parent Trap is the biggest mistake of his life.

As usual, Peter did not think through any lasting consequences of his latest scheme. He never expected it to backfire so spectacularly. He just wanted to stop all of that ridiculous drama, and he did . . . mostly. Erik and Charles still have stupid arguments about political shit that Peter doesn’t care about and sometimes even the house will shift and creak or the silverware will quake in the drawers, and Erik will march out, muttering under his breath without even tossing a backward glance at Peter.

The problem is not when Erik and Charles argue. Oh no. It’s when they _don’t_ argue, which is about ninety percent of the time. Instead, Erik shows up every Monday night, as regular as M.A.S.H., gives Peter a perfunctory hello and maybe a few minutes of awkward small talk before disappearing upstairs to play “chess” with Charles.

And Peter knows that it’s “chess” with quotation marks because of one horrible morning a couple weeks after O.G.P.T. when Peter walked into the kitchen to find Erik making coffee in the same clothes he arrived in last night, only a hundred times more wrinkled.

 “Oh my God,” Peter says, pointing.

“It’s seven in the morning,” says Erik. “What are you doing up?”

Technically Peter didn’t even go to sleep that night. But that’s not important right now. He can’t tear his eyes away from the massive cowlick sticking up from the side of Erik’s head and the purple bite mark on the nape of his neck.

“Oh my _God_. You had _sex_! With _Charles_!” To Peter’s utter mortification, he’s blushing like a fucking school girl.

“Yes I did,” says Erik with absolutely no shame whatsoever. “You’re the one who set this up. Isn’t this the outcome you wanted?”

“I don’t want to _know_. Oh my God! Gross. _Gross_. Now that image is going to be burned into my brain forever! Fuck!”

“If you’re imaging your father having sex, then I’m not the one with the problem,” Erik says dryly.

“FUCK! ERIK! FUCKING GROSS!”

Peter admits it. He runs out of the room with his hands over his ears and thinks about asking Charles to delete this memory entirely from his brain.

 

After that Erik shows up in the kitchen a lot, sometimes staying into the afternoon.  But he almost never spends any of that time with Peter. 

Well, okay, at first he and Charles tried. With spring thawing out the chilly temperatures, they would invite Peter (and Hank though the man declined every time) to brunch out on the terrace, or checkers competitions, or a movie night when they could catch them on the TV.

 But they inevitably get caught up in some kind of stirring debate about _politics_ (ugh gross, Peter would rather talk about the fucking _Once and Future King_ than candidates for the next president) and Peter would suddenly become invisible. Forgotten. Lost in conversations not meant for more than two people.

He tried to be understanding, okay? He gets that both men have ten years of mutual pining to catch up on. He gets that they have a second chance they never thought they’d get and it’s just so romantic, blah blah blah.

It just sucks feeling like the third wheel to your own _dad_. It’s downright pathetic. He’s not _jealous_ , okay? It’s just a little insulting, you know, after all the shit Peter’s done for Erik for the guy to just leave him hanging like that.

Like, one night Peter tried to get Erik hooked on M.A.S.H. for TV night. At first Erik watched the show dispassionately, but then he snickered after something Hawkeye said. When Peter glanced over, though, Erik and Charles were balls-deep in some telepathic communication, eyes locked on each other’s face and grinning at something else entirely.

 And that’s just _rude._

Fine. Whatever. Charles can have him. Apparently Erik only talks to Peter when he’s got no other options and Peter doesn’t need that. He went seventeen years without Erik. He can survive another fifty.

 

In the middle of it all, Peter finds surprising solidarity in Hank, who watches Erik and Charles’ interactions with a sour-faced scowl and a blue tinge to his skin. They often grumble and exchange wrinkled noses whenever they spot Charles and Erik during one their “dates.”

“He tried to kill me, you know,” Hank mutters to Peter one day as they spy on the couple from the kitchen window. “And Charles just forgives him. Just like that. What the hell?”

“No shit,” Peter agrees. “All this ‘you’re my son, I’ll do anything for you, here are some wicked t-shirts’ crap and look at him. I’m fucking chopped liver.”

So even though Hank is a gigantic nerd and typically someone Peter wouldn’t look twice at if they went to the same school, they end up spending a lot of time together. Mostly watching TV and puttering around in the science lab. Hank is so earnestly excited about all this nerd shit that Peter can’t help but smile and get involved even if it means he’s slowly turning into the kids he used to make fun of. In return, Peter drags Hank out onto the grounds for some experiments of his own, which mainly consist of cajoling the nerd into Blue Hank and watching the guy pull up trees and bash rocks with his bare fists and jump around like a jackrabbit from hell.

 

By April Charles has Peter and Hank digging up the old flower beds out front and planting climbing roses and irises and a bunch of other shit that Peter doesn’t know or care about. When he asked for a break from English Romantic Literature, he wasn’t expecting _this_ shit. He’s not fucking Mary in the Secret Garden, hoping to win the heart of his super rich, asshole uncle (He used to read it to Wanda all the time, okay? It’s not like he _likes_ it or anything).

“I like gardening,” says Hank. “I think it’s kind of relaxing.”

Peter rolls his eyes. Imagine the guy who could crush juice out of boulders would actually _like_ gardening. “You would think that. Nerd.”

Hank side-eyes him. “So we’re adding gardening to the list of nerdy stuff now?”

There is, in fact, a physical list of all the shit Hank does that Peter finds excessively nerdy. He wrote it up one afternoon in a fit of boredom while Hank lectured about physics shit. Lecturing stood at the top of the list, followed by Star Trek, PBS, wearing an apron when cooking, wearing glasses all the time even though he didn’t need them in his beast form, his love for Aristotle and other dead Greek guys, and the tiny, delicate way he sneezes.

“Duh,” says Peter. “Old, retired grandmas garden, Hank. Not strapping hot dudes like us. It’s shit like this that keeps you from getting laid, you know.”

 “I’m pretty sure sprouting fangs and blue fur every time I get pissed keeps me from dating.”

Peter claps his friend on the back. “Dude, there has got to be at least one hot mutant chick that finds blue people attractive on this Earth. We’ll find her.”

 Hank sighs. “I already did. She was perfect. But I was stupid and I messed everything up, so . . .” Hank stabs the dirt with the spade so hard that a clump of earth hit’s Peter’s cheek.

Peter wisely doesn’t reply to that and leaves Hank to his brooding. Something about this house just sucks up tragedy like a sponge.

 

It’s on a similar mellow spring day in the garden that _she_ shows up. Peter and Charles are planting some purple and blue flowers (Peter has long since given up trying to remember the names of all of them). Peter digs the holes and Charles gently sets down the flowers and pats the soil around them like he’s tucking them into bed.

He _talks_ to them, for fuck’s sake, saying shit like, “In you go, darling, snug as a bug,” and “Don’t you look beautiful today?”

“You need to get out more,” Peter mutters and Charles pointedly ignores him.

In the middle of mocking Charles for this loudly in his head, something moves in the corner of Peter’s eye. At first he thinks it’s just one of those obnoxious, asshole blue jays that always try to pluck out bits of Peter’s hair for their nests. Then he turns his head and drops his spade.

A chick strolls down the driveway like she owns the place, who knows to avoid the huge crack halfway through the middle, the one that tripped Peter constantly his first week here, without even looking at it.

A blue chick.

A blue, _bare-ass naked_ chick.

 _THE_ blue, bare-ass naked chick, the one who kicked Erik’s ass on national television.

“Holy fuck,” Peter whispers. He can’t tear his eyes away from the first real pair of boobs he’s ever seen that didn’t feature in a Playboy. They bounce ever so slightly as she marches towards the front door.

Charles’ head snaps up from the flower he coaxed into its bed and he goes very, very still, like the chick is a _T. rex_ that can only sense movement.

“Raven,” he breathes.

She can’t hear him, of course, having disappeared beyond the hedges. But something makes her slowly backtrack. At the sight of Charles, she freezes, assessing the pair of them in a way that prickles the hair on the back of Peter’s neck.  Everything about her reminds Peter of an animal, from the way she stares at them, assessing their threat level, to the way she keeps her balance on the balls of her feet, on the precipice of a fight or a flight.

For a long, tense moment Charles and Raven watch each other. Then Charles sets the trowel down and slowly opens his arms. Raven takes off down the lawn in a dead sprint like a goddamn velociraptor and Peter blurs to safety behind a tree without even thinking about it because something about her just screams _dangerous,_ like those super poisonous rainforest frogs. He figures Charles can take care of himself.

Raven flings her arms around Charles and tackles him to the ground and Peter is torn between the sudden fear for Charles’ safety and painful jealousy at having a naked hot babe glued to the guy with the paralyzed dick and not Peter, whose dick works just fine, thank you very much.

Raven, whoever the fuck she is, has buried her head in the crook of Charles’ neck and he brushes his hand through her bright red hair in slow, soothing strokes. Is this some crazy ex-girlfriend? Cause if Erik saw this he would probably blow up Manhattan.

_Peter. Get over here. Now._

Charles’ voice stabs like an ice pick in Peter’s head, sharp with worry, and Peter zips over, ready to tear that crazy bitch off of him, when he notices the blood staining Charles’ hand.

“Help her up and get her to Hank,” says Charles. “She’s injured.”

“I can walk, Charles,” she hisses. “I’m not made of glass.”

_Just do it, Peter._

Peter pushes the wheelchair closer to Charles. Then he bends down, slinging her arm over his shoulder, and takes off for the house before she spits out another word. The intensity of Charles’ concern echoes in his head and he doesn’t even notice the naked boob pressed against his side (though to be honest, he will probably never wash this shirt again). They stumble-dash into the lab, knocking into a table. Raven collapses against the counter and promptly vomits all over Peter’s Chuck Taylors. He can feel the warm damp already seeping into his socks and fights the urge to puke himself.

 _Upchuck Taylors,_ Peter thinks and giggles despite the nausea.

“Peter, what on Earth –“

The lecture building in Hank’s eyes stops cold at the sight of Raven heaving against the stainless steel.

“She’s hurt,” explains Peter. “She just showed up out of nowhere. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, man.”

Hank approaches Raven slowly, hands out in surrender, like she might bolt at any second. Which, to be fair, is highly probable.

“Raven, what’s wrong?” he asks. “What hurts?”

She straightens up with some difficulty, sagging against the counter, and wipes her mouth. “It’s nothing. It’s just this gash – it must have ripped open when I – when I ran to Charles.”

Hank stops a respectable distance away from her and Peter can tell the guy is in Clinical Doctor Mode because he doesn’t pay the slightest attention to the naked boobs in front of him. Peter, on the other hand, has a hard time tearing his eyes away, even though she’s a real human and not a sixth grade biology textbook.

Jesus, Maximoff. Get your shit together.

“Can I look at it?” Hank asks.

Raven nods. “Yeah – I guess.”

“I have an infirmary off to the side here.” Hank cups her elbow like a perfect gentleman and escorts her to the closed off section in the back where he presumably treated sick kids when the school was open.

Peter follows, keeping his eyes firmly on the ground and not on Raven’s ass, to grab some paper towels. Behind the curtain there are three cots with soft white sheets and an examination table. Hank hastily wipes it off with a washcloth and a spray bottle of rubbing alcohol before allowing Raven to sit on it. Little rivers of blood, slightly purple on her blue skin, run down her side from a nasty cut on her back. Hank traces around it with gentle, gloved fingers. Peter takes his shoes off and puts them in the sink.

“Raven, this needed stitches,” Hank admonishes. “Why didn’t you go to a hospital?”

Raven hisses in pain. “They were looking for someone with my injuries. I just treated it myself. It’s not the first time.”

Hank’s eyebrows furrowed. “Who are 'they'?”

Raven purses her lips into a thin line and doesn’t answer.

“Well, I am going to give you stitches, but first I’ll give you a shot of local anesthesia.”

“Don’t need it,” Raven says through gritted teeth. “Just do it.”

“Raven, I can’t – that would be _torture_ ,” Hank stutters.

Raven sighs, throwing her hand up in the air. “Fine. Whatever.”

Hank prepares a small shot of anesthesia and injects it into her back. Then he grabs thread and a special needle out of his kit – the same one Erik used all those weeks ago – and begins stitching Raven’s back with the greatest care. Raven doesn’t bat an eyelash; she just sits there like this whole thing is an inconvenience while Peter rapidly comes to the conclusion that Raven is the most hardcore badass to ever grace his presence.

Then the door to the lab slams open and Charles wheels between the wide-spaced tables.

“What’s the damage, Hank? Is she alright?”

Raven sighs. “I’m _fine_ , Charles. Okay? I promise, this is nothing compared to what I’ve been through before.”

Despite the interruptions, Hank’s fingers stay level and steady as he threads the needle through Raven’s skin. Charles can’t look at it. He takes Raven’s hands in his and stares at their intertwining fingers.

“She has a couple of bruised ribs,” Hank informs him, “and this laceration. I’ve already checked it for infection. It’s clean.”

Charles nods, brushing the pad of his thumb against Raven’s knuckle, who squeezes his hands in return. Yeah, totally ex-girlfriend-y. Erik is going to be so fucking _pissed_.

“Peter,” says Charles with a half-smile, “allow me introduce you to Raven – my sister.”

Hold the goddamn phone – _sister?!_

“You never said you had siblings!” he cries.

“I never say anything about my past, do I?”

Well . . . true. Charles loves living in dramatic mystery, like a grandma who watches too many soaps.

“I take offense to that.”

Hank closes off the wound and snips off the leftover thread. “It’s imperative that you keep this clean,” he says, coming around the table to face her. “If it gets infected, those stitches will have to be removed and then replaced.”

“I know,” Raven says with a bit of an eye roll, but then she offers Hank a tentative smile. A blush pops up, sticking out like a sunburn on Hank’s white bread cheeks as he ducks his head down and smiles and oh _shit._

_Dude, there has got to be at least one hot mutant chick that finds blue people attractive on this Earth_

Well, Hank may be a gigantic fucking nerd, but at least he has good taste.

Peter studies the object of Hank’s wet dreams with new eyes. She and Charles don’t look a thing alike, though that might because she’s blue and unfortunately scaly in all the fun places. She catches his eye and raises a red brow.

“You’re new and I’m busy at the moment, so I’ll let you off with a warning,” she says to him. “If you don’t stop staring at my tits I’m going to snap your neck like a toothpick with my feet. ’Kay?”

Peter can feel his cheeks grow hot. No one’s made him blush in a long time. Great, now he looks like Hank. He quickly darts his eyes to her dangerous feet. “Is that your power? Killer feet?”

She snorts. “No.”

Her body turns freakishly scaly and _changes_ , like a 3-D hologram, and Peter finds himself looking at a perfect replica of . . . himself, right down to the tiny mole in his ear. She even copied his clothes. He wonders briefly if she did his dick any justice or kept it small out of spite.

“I mimic people,” she says _in his voice_ and this is totally fucking trippy. It’s like if his reflection had a mind of its own and Peter’s pretty sure he saw a horror movie like that once.

“Can you look like Faye Dunaway?” he asks her. “You know, without the clothes?”

She glares at him. “Tooth. Pick.”

“Peter, why don’t you make us some sandwiches,” Charles says hastily. “The normal way, if you please. No need to break any records today.”

Peter sighs and trudges off to the kitchen.

Raven “I swear to God, Charles, I can take care of myself, I came back because I wanted to” Xavier/Darkholme/Whatever-the-fuck ends up squatting at the mansion for an undetermined amount of time. She refuses to say for how long, just that she’ll leave “when she feels like it.”

Peter has a feeling that Raven only ever does anything “when she feels like it.”

Charles is over the goddamn moon about it, and he shows it by sending Hank to the store for all of Raven’s old favorite snacks, no matter her protests. Hank seems more than happy to comply and he checks and cleans her wound, like, every five seconds.

Peter watches their every interaction like he’s studying for one of Charles’ killer tests and feeling like someone’s busybody grandmother. Hank is cool as a cucumber when they discuss science-y or medical stuff, and a mumbling, stuttering mess with anything else. If Hank pulled this shit with the senior girls at Peter’s old high school, somebody would have thrown him into a dumpster. But Raven just smiles and nods. Besides, anytime Charles even hints at her wounds, she rolls out the “I’m an Independent Woman” speech and yet sits with endless patience for Hank’s ridiculous mothering over a handful of stitches. So Hank doesn’t need to worry.

Though Raven snaps at Charles about any tiny little thing that could maybe possibly be perceived as coddling, Peter busted them in the library her first night crying and hugging and kissing cheeks through a cracked door. So maybe he doesn’t buy Raven’s “I’ll Fucking Cut You” routine as much as she would like him to.

But he still doesn’t check out her boobs. And eventually he doesn’t even notice her nudity anymore. It became normal, like seeing Hank in his lab coat and Charles in his wheelchair. Like seeing the blue sky.

 

So it turns out that Raven is a fucking nutcase. But, like, the cool kind of nutcase. 

The kind of nutcase who tests to see if Peter actually _can_ outrun bullets by shooting him with a handgun. Then she starts testing how far Peter can deflect bullets by sitting apples on Hank’s head and having the poor bastard standing in various places in the backyard. Peter never thought the fluff ball would be up for that kind of insanity, but Hank spouted some physics crap that Peter tuned out and volunteered immediately. Though Peter wonders where Hank’s enthusiasm comes from – science or Raven?

Charles always supervises and, to Peter’s shock, offers suggestions instead of warnings.

It’s right before one of these experiments when Erik shows up. Raven stands with her back to the western trees, gun pointing straight at Peter’s head, while Hank stands directly behind her holding up a banana. Peter’s supposed to direct the bullet around to the banana and not hit Hank. He stands on the balls of his feet, waiting not for the sound of gunshot but for the tiny twitch of Raven’s finger.

“What in the hell is going on?”

The blast of gunshot echoes against the mansion walls. Peter jumps into gear, pushing the bullet harmlessly into the ground, and then glares up at whoever the fuck almost got him killed: Erik, of course, who leans against the terrace.

“God _damn_ it, Erik,” cries Raven, whirling the gun on him.

Charles sucks in a deep breath and Hank’s claws lengthen and sharpen as blue fur sprouts along his arms. Erik’s eyes scan the barrel of the gun and the blue finger that rests against the casing and not the trigger. With the flick of a wrist the gun shoots out of Raven’s hand and melts into a twisted, useless pile before dropping on the ground. He walks out onto the lawn towards her and Peter gets ready, man, because some serious shit is about to go down and he’s not sure whose side he’d be on to be fucking honest.

But Erik stops in front of Raven and smiles at her.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he tells her.

“I know,” she says, but she eyes Erik with the wariness of a trapped animal.

“It’s good to see you back home. Charles missed you.”

Raven’s eyes flick over to her brother, who watches this with preternatural calm and a hand resting not-so-subtly against his temple. The corner of her mouth tugs up. “I know.”

Erik slowly claps a hand on her shoulder. “ _I_ missed you. Did you know that?”

She ducks her gaze down and says nothing. “You tried to kill me. You are a fucking asshole,” she tells him.

“I know.” He glances over at the twisted metal goop lying on the ground. “So, was there any particular reason why you were pointing a gun at my son’s head? I know how annoying he can get, but that’s a little overkill, don’t you think?”

Annoying? _Annoying_? Erik’s tried to assassinate people with giant robots but _Peter_ is annoying? What the fuck?

Raven’s mouth falls open like a cartoon character. “Excuse me, your _what_?”

“You can’t see the resemblance?” Erik says, so seriously that he has to be joking, and gestures between Peter and himself.

Oh yeah, they look about as alike as a wolf and a sheepdog (Peter’s the wolf, of course, Erik can stick with the sheepdog, the way his growing hair flops in his eyes now that pomade isn’t in fashion anymore).

Raven whirls around on Peter. “What the _fuck_ , and none of you ever said anything?!”

“You never asked,” says Peter. How does it feel to be in the dark about people’s familial relationships, bitch?

“I never _asked?_ Are you kidding me, I’ve been here four days and no one cared to inform me that some delusional woman voluntarily had sex with _Erik_?”

“Hey,” yelps Peter, “that’s my mom you’re talking about!”

“If I recall, you were once just as ‘delusional’,” Erik retorts.

Raven sends Erik a death glare that could rival his own, and shoves his shoulder. “You promised me we would _never_ talk about that again!”

Charles claps his hands and says loudly, “Okay! Has anyone had lunch? I don’t think anyone has had lunch. Let’s all gather in the kitchen and have lunch!”

Peter opens his mouth to tell Charles to shove lunch up his ass because this shit’s unfolding like a soap opera, only fifty times more interesting, when the sudden urge for a tuna fish sandwich erupts like fucking Mount Vesuvius. He wants tuna fish more than anything else in his life; more that water, more than air, more than a naked Faye Dunaway, even. In fact, he will murder anyone who even thinks about putting themselves between Peter and a double-decker tuna fish sandwich.

His love for tuna fish sandwiches on toast remains unrivaled until Peter finally comes to, sitting at the kitchen island with Hank and a mouthful of tuna and remembering how much he fucking hates tuna. He spits it out onto the paper plate.

“Ugh! Gross! Not cool, Xavier. Not cool!” He rushes over to the sink and rinses his mouth out, but the taste of fish lingers.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Charles.

Everyone ends up having a quiet lunch whether they want to or not, while Charles facilitates small talk between Erik and Raven to ensure that no other juicy drama gets spilled. Raven still refuses to reveal why she showed up on Charles’ doorstep at all, but Peter doesn’t miss the significant look she shares with Erik when Charles refills his water.

Peter intends to eavesdrop on _that_ future conversation.

Erik helps Charles clean up after lunch, washing the dishes as Charles clears the table. It looks totally innocent unless you notice the disgusting, lingering touches they give each other whenever Charles hands Erik a plate or spoon. Raven wipes the table down and watches them with suspicious eyes until she grab’s Peter’s arm and drags him into the hallway.

“How long has that been going on?” Raven hisses.

“What?”

She waves at the kitchen. “Erik having _sex_ with my _brother_ , that’s what!”

Peter flinches. Even after all this time the thought of his dad having sex is just so fucking _gross_. “A few weeks,” says Peter. “Why, you jealous?”

Weirdly, he hopes that she is. Then maybe she can join him and Hank when they bitch about it. And maybe the more people who agree with Peter means that Peter himself isn’t a petty nutcase for feeling  this way.

Raven snorts. “Please. I don’t carry a torch for people for ten years, okay? I’m not Charles.”

“Or Erik,” Peter mutters.

Raven gives him a critical look. “So . . . you’re sure that Erik is your dad? Like, one hundred percent positive?”

Peter squirms. “Well, he was married to my mom, so I guess?”

“Holy shit,” Raven hisses. “Erik? _Married?!_ No way.”

“Way, dude. Way. He was like super young, though.”

Raven presses a hand to her forehead. “Sorry. I just cannot see Erik _married_. Or young. Like, what?”

Finally, someone who gets it.

“No kidding,” says Peter. “It’s like he was born old and pissed off.”

They catch each other’s eye and snicker.

“But seriously, you should get used to that. They’ve got their heads up each others' asses. Probably literally.”

Raven shrugs. “Honestly, that’s not very different from before the . . . split.”

 

That night Peter hears murmurs in the den beside the kitchen as he searches for the box of Twinkies. He zips silently to the door and tries to listen in.

“ . . .I left I heard about three others,” Raven is saying. “But there could be more. I doubt Charles will want to do anything about it; it’s up to us.”

“Don’t sell Charles so short. He’s not unreasonable about humans, just . . . absurdly optimistic.”

“He’s gonna get pissed at a body count.”

“Well then we will have to be very careful . . . or very discreet.”

“Unlike _some_ people mouth-breathing at the crack in the door!” Raven says loudly. “Don’t think I can’t hear you, Peter.”

The door swings wide open, but not fast enough. He dashes to his room before Raven could take her fingers off the handle.

Unfortunately, after that Erik and Raven spoke to each other exclusively in French every time Peter neared the two and he never got another coherent word out of them.

 

If Peter bothered with all the calculations, life with Raven is more interesting than life without her by approximately a thousand percent. It helps that because Charles missed her so bad and Erik feels like shit for trying to kill her in Paris (is it weird that Peter is literally the only person in the house who hasn’t had his life threatened by Erik?) she can totally get away with whatever the fuck she wants to.

Like interrupting Peter’s philosophy homework so they can smoke a joint in the woods behind the house.

“You looked so bored and miserable I figured I would give you a break.”

Peter stares at the proffered joint in her hand with suspicion.

“Did Charles put you up to this?” he asks. “If I take a hit off that is he going to make me mop the attic or some shit?”

Raven rolls her eyes. “Chill out, Peter. I read Descartes once for Charles, okay? I know how much it sucks. But if you don’t think you can handle it . . .”

Peter snatches the joint out of her hand. He knows she probably just manipulated the shit out of him, but Peter never misses an opportunity to prove someone wrong. Raven could say Peter couldn’t handle jumping off a bridge and he would leap off the fucking Golden Gate just to shut her up.

He wraps his lips around the tip and takes a deep huff like he saw all the cool kids at school do. The next second he’s doubled over, coughing and wheezing like a loser while Raven giggles off to the side.

“You’re doing it wrong,” she says, rescuing the joint from the ground. “Here, I’ll show you.”

In two tokes, Raven and Peter lie sprawled out on the grass and telling each other the stupidest jokes they can think of. Everything is warm and hazy and Peter feels like he could fly if he tried hard enough but it’s not worth the effort of getting up. And everything, every goddamn thing in the world, is funny. He and Raven spent a solid five minutes giggling at a fat bee.

“Here’s my favorite joke,” says Raven. “What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?”

Already Peter is snickering even though he doesn’t have a clue what the answer is. “What?”

“Where’s my tractor?”

Peter curls up and laughs so hard that he nearly pukes. “What the – what the _fuck_?” he gasps. “That’s not even a joke!”

“I know!” Raven wheezes. “That’s the point!”

They head back into the kitchen not long after and Peter inhales six peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. His stomach is sore for two days afterward from all the laughing.

 

Raven also thinks it’s hilarious to sneak up on Peter and scare the shit out of him just to see him blur out all over the room.  And you can’t return the favor either or she puts you into a chokehold that nearly snaps your neck with just her feet (Blue people and crazy feet, man. What is up?). But she always makes up for it.

Like when she crashes Charles and Erik’s chess games in the library by dragging out the old copy of Monopoly and luring Peter and Hank into a cut-throat game that she wins almost every time because the bitch is _ruthless._ She only ever lost one game to Hank and that was because she kept cutting the guy a break on rent (not that she _ever, not one goddamn time,_ did for Peter and when he points this out she doubles the fine he owes her out of spite.)

And that one evening where Raven ambushes Peter in the kitchen during a midnight snack.

Peter drops a glass and it smashes all over the tile floor because Faye Goddamn Dunaway is standing in in the kitchen doorway, dressed in black lingerie and holding a Converse box.

“'Cause I threw up on your other pair,” she says, setting the box on the counter and offering Peter a perfect, unobscured view of her breasts in a push up bra.

It’s a perfect replica, right down to her freckles, and Peter feels a bit star struck even though he knows it isn’t real. He tears his gaze reluctantly away to the box at hand, flipping it open to reveal a pair of pristine grey All Stars.

“I tried them on in your body so I knew they would fit,” she says. “Sorry it took so long to get them.”

“Dude! This is awesome! Thanks!” Peter grinned at her. “Can I hug you or is that gonna get me killed?”

“I guess you can. Just this once, though.”

She opens her arms and Peter wraps his arms around her tiny waist and oh my God this is what it feels like to touch _Faye Dunaway_ and it’s almost as good a gift as the fucking shoes, to be honest.

 

Not only does Raven rescue Peter from boredom, but she has a knack for saving him from encounters with Erik. It’s like her second mutation.

One evening Erik corners Peter in the kitchen after dinner with a carton of ice cream. A couple weeks ago he would have killed to split a carton with Erik and while he teaches Peter cuss words in French and German.  But now any attempt that Erik makes to spend time with Peter feels hollow, perfunctory, like Erik is humoring him, counting down the minutes in his head until he can escape back to Charles.

Even so, a part of him can’t say no to the guy when he holds up the Rocky Road, a pair of spoons floating from the drawer.

“Dessert?” Erik asks.

Aw fuck. Peter looks around the empty kitchen and resigns himself to twenty minutes of eating in choking silence thick with all of Peter’s pent up anger.

But then Raven pokes her head through the kitchen door. “Peter, M.A.S.H. is on. It just started.”

Oh thank _God_.

“Sorry, dude,” Peter says to Erik and dashes out of there.

 

Raven is super fly and Peter takes twisted delight in taking her attention away from Charles and Erik. It’s sweet, sweet revenge every time Raven drags out a board game for her, Peter, and Hank, and Erik throws narrowed glares Peter’s way every time he and Raven laugh over Monopoly.

After the third night or so Erik actually has to gall to walk over and sit next to Peter right after Peter rolls a five.

“Can I join you?”

Peter does a double take. “ _You_? You want to play a board game?”

“Yes.” Erik avoids Peter’s gaze and moves Peter’s car five spaces with a wave of his finger. Fucking show off.

Raven opens her mouth to reply, but Peter cuts her off. “Sorry, dude, but you can’t just join in mid-game.”

“Perhaps the one after this,” says Erik.

“Do you have any idea how long these games can go? We won’t have time for another one tonight.”

He can feel Erik’s frustration even without fancy telepathy.

“Then I’ll join you the next time you play,” says Erik with deceptive calm.

Peter shrugs. “You know what?  I’m getting kind of tired of this game anyway, so you can have my spot.”

Erik gives him that Thousand Yard stare that makes the back of Peter’s neck prickle. Then he stands up and leaves the room without a word. Then everyone _else's_ stares immediately focus on Peter like laser beams.

“Peter,” says Charles carefully, “what was that?”

“Nothing,” Peter snaps. “None of your business.”

He glares over at Raven and Hank before they can jump in too. Raven holds her hands up.

“Hey, I don’t get involved in that kind of crap,” she says. “I’m not Charles. Do you want to finish the game or not?”

Peter looks down at the board in disgust. “No. Not anymore.”

He runs out of the house and down into the deepest corner of the backyard before anyone else can say anything. To his surprise, the space in his head remains safe from Charles’ telepathic meddling. He takes advantage of this privacy by kicking the bark off the nearest tree.

What the fuck, man? Seriously, what the fuck? God forbid Peter hang out with Raven without Erik getting all pissy jealous. And not even jealous over Peter, no, but over _Raven_ because having Charles all to himself isn’t good enough, he’s gotta have Raven too.

Because here is the shittiest of all shit things: he misses Erik. Raven might be totally boss but he misses hanging with Erik the way they used to and she doesn’t make up for it. Nothing makes up for it.

And he hates that Erik went and said all this shit about family and put all that fucking effort in trying to bond with Peter even if he fucked it up all the time just so he can cast Peter off like a worn out coat the second he gets Charles and Raven. It’s like Peter’s some kind consolation prize that Erik only valued until the real thing came along. And if that’s how Erik wants to treat his own son, then Erik can go fuck himself.

 

Even recovering alcoholics keep a secret stash, or maybe it belongs to Raven. Either one should learn to hide the tequila better than behind the extra virgin olive oil in the pantry. It’s two in the morning and Peter is pissed that he’s pissed about Erik and he can’t think of a better midnight snack than this.

It burns like crazy going down and tastes so fucking awful he almost pukes it right back up. But cool people can handle their liquor so Peter keeps taking shots out of the tiniest measuring cup he can find because Hank smashed all the shot glasses.

After four shots, the world is slow, the first time since he was eight. Slow but constantly tilting and spinning and shaking and the ground suddenly wants to trip Peter, whose limbs are rebelling against his brain. Who just wants make to the fridge for some pickles.

 _Walk, goddamn it. One fucking foot in front of the other fucking foot_. His brain yells.

 _Fuck off,_ says his feet and they lurch sideways and Peter can’t run and he is pissed.

In fact, he’s really fucking pissed at _everything._ He hates this house and how big and fucking pretentious it is. And he hates the stairs because the banisters aren’t wide enough to slide on and he learned that the hard way when he busted his ass and nearly broke his tail bone. He hates that cookie jar because – because he just hates it. Fuck that cookie jar.

And fuck Charles for living in this stupid house instead of selling it and buying an apartment in New York City like a cool person would do.

Peter finally stumbles against the fridge and yanks it open only to notice that it’s the freezer so he grabs the ice cream instead. It’s Eriks favorite – mint chocolate chip. He should burn it or throw it in the trash compactor.

Instead he eats it.

He eats the whole goddamn thing, out of pure spite, and the speed of the sugar rush clashes against slow of the alcohol like two swords in a death match and suddenly Peter finds that the floor is the only wonderful thing in this whole fucking terrible universe.

He lays down (falls) on his back and stares at the dark ceiling (he didn’t turn the kitchen light on) and hears the back door open softly, and heavy footsteps clomp closer until the shadow of Erik’s face leans over him.

“What are you _doing_?”

And holy shit does Peter ever have a bunch to say to that goddamn bastard but his mouth doesn’t work anymore.

“You! You stu – you son of a- you! What are you – _you_!”

Maybe he should just pull a Charles, and tell Erik to fuck off before leaving with an air of dignified injury. If he could get up by himself.

Maybe he should stay on the floor.

“ _Gott in Himmel,_ Peter,” mutters Erik with a shake of his head. “How much did you drink?”

Erik hauls Peter to his feet and wraps a warm, solid arm under him just as Peter’s legs buckle underneath him. His face collides with Erik’s chest and the familiar scent of Erik’s aftershave and Peter shoves himself violently away before he can take any comfort in it, slamming his back into the kitchen table.

“No! Stop it!”

“Peter, you’re drunk. You need to go to bed,” says Erik, his mouth thinning. “Preferably _before_ you pass out.”

He grabs Peter’s arm and Peter rips himself away.

“Don’t fuckin’ _touch me!”_

Hurt flashes in Erik’s eyes and fuck this guy, he has no goddamn right to look _upset_ at _Peter_ when he’s the one who ignores him.

“What is _your problem_?”

“ _My_ problem? Are you shit-- shitting me, man? _My_ problem?”

“Yes, your problem. You’ve been sullen and angry for weeks, not to mention last night! Now you’re getting shit-faced because I wanted to play a board game with Raven? What is _wrong_ with you?”

“Oh, Raven!” slurs Peter, throwing his arms in the air, which causes him to lose his balance. “Firs’ it’s Charlie, now it’s Raven!”

“ _What_ are you talking about?” Erik snaps.

“Nothing, okay! Just – just go shove your dick up Charlie’s ass and mind your goddamn business!”

“So that’s what this is about – me and _Charles_? All that lying and scheming and manipulating to get us together, now you suddenly have a _problem_?”

Okay. Alright. If this asshole wants a fight then, goddamn it, Peter is gonna give him one. He puts all his concentration in drawing himself to his full height without falling over. He and Erik can almost see eye to eye.

“Yeah. Yeah! I have a problem that getting your dick sucked by Charlie means you don’t have time for – for anyone else!”

Erik’s eyes narrow into that infamous glare and Peter swallows. “You’re jealous. I didn’t believe Charles when he told me, but you’re actually _jealous._ ”

Peter opens his mouth to deny it but Erik cuts him off, clamping two heavy hands on Peter’s shoulder in hard grip.

“Let me make this abundantly clear: I have other things going on in my life than just you, some more important than wasting time eating ice cream in the middle of the night. You’re going to have to grow up and accept that instead of throwing a childish tantrum whenever you don’t get my sole attention. My existence does not revolve around me catering to you.”

Peter’s mouth opens and closes like a fish. He feels like Erik just blew a hole in his chest and to his absolute _horror_ he can feel his eyes sting with tears. Something inside him snaps and a temper unlike anything he’s ever known courses through him, too intense for words. He rears his fist back and drives it in Erik’s stupid terrorist face.

It’s the shittiest baby punch, glancing harmlessly off Erik’s cheek and sending Peter stumbling right back into Erik’s chest. Erik shoves him right back against the table.

“ _Peter Maximoff!_ ”

Erik’s voice sounds like a crack of thunder, raw and _loud_ , and Erik has never really yelled at Peter before and whoo boy Peter has really pissed the guy off. He should probably stumble-run back upstairs and let Charles deal with Erik while he sleeps off what will probably be a killer hangover. But he’s not about to run away like a little bitch.

“F-fuck _off_ , Erik! Just fuck off! You don’t get to act like my dad only when it’s con – conven-ent for you.” The words are like gobs of peanut butter, hard to spit out, but Peter has never thought clearer. “We’re – we’re done, alright? You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’ve spent seven-seventeen years without you and I would rather have seventeen more than deal with this fucking bullshit!”

He shoves both hands against Erik’s chest as hard as he could and then takes off outside again before Erik can kill him. 

 

Hank finds him the next morning under an oak tree, contemplating hanging himself to escape the pounding headache he has.

“What happened to _you_?” Hank asks.

“Kill me,” says Peter. “Just shoot me and put me out of my misery, _please_.”

Hank sighs and bends down to help Peter up. “Come on. I have about a hundred hangover cures. We’ll see which one works for you.”

“I can’t,” Peter moans. “Erik’s still up there and he’s gonna kill me for last night.”

“Erik left. He was gone before dawn.”

 

Hank, bless his blue furry soul, doesn’t ask Peter anything about last night, though he must have heard it. He explains Erik’s absence as he makes Peter guzzle down about a half-gallon of water. _Apparently_ , everyone has been plotting Super-Secret Stuff behind Peter’s back, shit that has to do with mutant experimentation and Evil Humans. Erik left early this morning on some stupid mission and Hank is skinny on the details.

Peter can’t say he’s surprised, exactly, what with all the whispery French conversations he’s overheard, but still. Why didn’t they let him in on this? He’s useful! Erik wouldn’t be here if Peter couldn’t do badass shit. He’s two months away from adulthood; they can’t use the child excuse forever.

Fine. Whatever. They can just do shit the hard way. He hopes Erik suffers for it.

After Hank rehydrates him and gives him some pain killers, Peter crashes on his bed and lies in utter misery for hours. Even after the headache fades away, the heavy weight of wretchedness lingers. First his mom, now Erik. How many relationships is Peter going to fuck up?

He doesn’t get up until Charles fetches him for dinner.

“Peter, are you alright?” the man asks.

“Yep,” says Peter, the pillow muffling his voice. “Just peachy.”

“Dinner is being served, if you can stomach it.”

The bed tells him to stay put where it’s quiet and warm, but then Peter’s stomach tells the bed to fuck off with an embarrassing growl.

“Ugh. Fine. I’ll come down, I guess.”

He drags himself from the warm embrace of his bed and scrubs a hand through his wild hair. Charles waits for him by the door and escorts Peter downstairs in surprising silence. Peter glances over at him as they ride down the elevator.

“ . . .you’re not gonna say anything?”

Charles sighs. “Erik has asked me not to meddle, and I will respect his wishes. Besides, what goes on between the two of you is none of my business.”

“You’re not mad at me?”

“I am the last person to judge you for drowning your emotional problems in alcohol,” Charles points out as the elevator doors open. “But no, I’m not angry at you. Come and eat.”

 

Raven leaves soon after Erik. She doesn’t even say goodbye, either. One day Peter comes downstairs for breakfast to sub-par pancakes and another empty spot at the table. 

Charles remains calm and collected and pursues Peter’s continuing education with a determination that borderlines on the obsessive. (Really, Peter wishes Charles would understand that he isn’t hiding some secret genius or whatever and give up.) But he constantly glances out the window, as if hoping to spot Raven coming down the driveway even though Charles would know her presence way before Peter could see her. And he wheels about the house on endless chores that he stops in the middle of to dash down to Cerebro every five seconds.

Peter doesn’t know what shenanigans Raven’s up to, but Charles can expect another “I Can Take Care Of Myself” rant if he keeps this shit up.

The shit hits the fan when Raven’s deadline shows up with no Raven. Charles unknowingly projects his anxiety over the whole mansion, setting everyone’s teeth on edge. He spends the day glued to the windows and Hank locks himself in his lab. He doesn’t know if the gnawing pit in his stomach is from Charles’ projection or his own worries, but Peter has so much nervous energy he actually runs laps around the mansion until it hurts to breathe just to get it all out.

No one sleeps that night. When dawn breaks the next day, the three of them gather grimly into Cerebro as Charles searches for Raven’s whereabouts (against her express wishes, of course). After a few frustrating minutes, Charles throws the helmet off his head, pupils blown wide. Suddenly Peter feels like an elephant just took a huge dump on his chest and that he would melt someone’s brain for a bottle of scotch.

“I can’t find her. I can’t sense her at all,” says Charles, running shaking hands through his hair. “It’s like she’s de-“

“No!” The word bursts out of Hank. “She survived ten years without anyone; she’s the only one out of Erik’s Brotherhood to evade capture from Trask and live. Something else has gone wrong, Charles, but she’s not dead.”

Charles takes several deep breaths and slowly the vice clenching Peter’s chest loosens. “They must be holding her somewhere that blocks my telepathy,” he says slowly. “Perhaps they found the same type of metal that Erik’s helmet is made of and padded a room with it.”

Hank nods. “Where was her destination? We need to formulate a plan.”

“In the kitchen,” Peter adds. “I’m really hungry.”

 

They discuss their options while Peter wolfs down leftover macaroni and cheese and tries not to spew noodle bits on the giant map spread out in front of them.

To be honest, their options are shit.

“If they are blocking my powers, I would be completely useless,” Charles is saying. “Not to mention it’s impossible to manage my wheelchair there.”

“I could go alone,” says Hank.

“Absolutely not. You have no protection against their weapons and I shudder at what they would do to you. We need Erik.”

“Erik is half a country away! If Raven’s in critical danger, he’d never make it in time. We’re only a few hours from Alkali Lake. I can make it there and back no problem, even without the jet.”

“I can’t risk that, Hank. If Raven was captured alone, what makes you think you would fare any better?”

Seriously? Fuck this shit. Raven could be getting carved up like a fucking Christmas turkey while they wasted time waiting for _Erik_ when the goddamn solution is literally a foot away! Hank could make it to Alkali in a few hours? Peter could make it in twenty _minutes._ Hell, he could go there and grab Raven and make it back in less than an hour. They could probably still make _breakfast._

Of course Charles would _never_ agree to it, now that he’s sober and still feeling guilty about the Pentagon. And if Peter were to voice his suggestion aloud, Charles would probably make him forget it the next second to keep him home.

Peter stands up and places his dishes in the sink. Then he bends down and reties his shoes. “I’ll be back in an hour or so,” he tells them.

Charles and Hank snap their heads up.

“What? Where are you going?” Charles demands.

“I’m getting Raven, since you two bozos just want to sit and argue about it. I’ll be right back.”

“Peter! N-“

The “o” drags out into a long deep howl as Peter jumps into gear. He grabs the map off the table and dashes out the door.

 

It gets cold as a motherfucker the higher north he goes. Alkali Lake sits just on the other side of the Canadian border. Peter follows the road on the map, going so fast that he feels like he’s dodging parked cars. His stamina has built up considerably since he showed up at the mansion, since there’s nothing to do but run most of the time.

Even so, Peter starts to wear out a couple hundred miles from the base. His side hurts like a bitch and he feels like he might puke.

But he doesn’t stop.

Hank isn’t the only one who loves Raven. Peter does too. Or maybe it’s not _love_ , exactly, but it’s not all lust. Is there a word for you-are-the-most-hardcore- _boss_ -and-I-will-worship-you-forever? It’s kind of like a knight and a princess if the princess was a badass and the knight was a stupid teenager who couldn’t do shit but just bask in the shining rays of her badassery.

Whatever the fuck he feels, Peter won’t stop until he gets Raven safe.

 

It takes for-fucking-ever to find the base, mainly because it sits in the middle of the goddamn wilderness. Peter has to stop in a very questionable greasy spoon in the nearest town to ask for directions. Everyone tried to tell him that it’s abandoned and surrounded by bears. He steals a milkshake off the counter before leaving.

The base is located behind a good mile or more of pine forest and Peter wonders if maybe he should have paid attention to the **Caution: Bears** sign at the beginning. When he crests a small hill overlooking the base, he thinks he might be lost. Because although he sees the giant lake, he doesn’t see any building to go with it besides a circle of twisted, rusted metal.

What is this is some elaborate goose chase? What if they moved her, what if Raven was never here to begin with? This is their only lead; how will they ever find her?

(What if she’s dead by now?)

But then something flits in the corner of his eye and he spies two men coming out of a secret entrance, both holding massive plastic AK-47s.

Staggering relief wars with sudden gut-clenching fear. Obviously they have Raven or they wouldn’t still be patrolling the place. But if they have Raven, that means Peter has to actually go in there and rescue her. And those guys have guns. Big guns. And like the guards at the Pentagon, they don’t have problems shooting a random kid. Peter has one chance to grab Raven and get out and if he fucks that up, man, they are both _toast_.

Peter fucks up more often than not so his odds aren’t really in his favor here. In fact, the more the thinks about it, the more he breaks down into hysterical giggling, like the Joker. His chest grows tight and heavy, like an elephant's sitting on it, and between that and the laughter, he can hardly breathe.

_Raven is depending on you, Maximoff. Get your shit together for Christ’s sake!_

He takes a deep, deep breath, holds it for a few seconds, and then slowly exhales. Just the way Erik taught him.

Then he dashes off for the two men just as they round the corner again and busts their heads open with their own plastic guns. Peter ignores the blood in the dirt and the unnatural stillness of their bodies and waves at the camera mounted on the wall. Sure enough, two seconds later the door opens up, more guards spilling out, and he dashes back in and locks the door behind them.

Inside all the humans are freaking out, like pissed off bees in a smashed up hive. Peter blurs past them while they stand almost motionless in the dimly lit hallways, hands on their guns. He zips in between them, shoving them over like bowling pins against the wall or each other. The complex is huge, sprawling for god only knows how far underground. There’s no other strategy other than dashing down random hallways and ducking into random rooms until he finds her.

Luckily, he finds her in the third hallway he runs down, still blue and naked and strapped to a table. Her eyes are closed.

Shit. Even if she isn’t dead, Peter can’t carry her all the way the fuck back to Westchester.

He bends his head down to her chest and hears quick, shallow breathing.

“Raven?” He whispers. “You there?”

Her whole body jerks underneath the straps. Yellow eyes fly wide open.

“Peter?!”

They both jerk at the growing sound of footsteps. A lot of footsteps. Oh shit. Oh fuck. They’re coming. Peter digs at the buckles with shaking fingers, but mingled shouts echo just outside the door. No time. They’ll be breaking the door down any second.

He jerks his gaze around the room for something to stall them with and ends up shoving all the remaining furniture against the door.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Raven hisses at him as he attacks her straps. “Did you seriously just fucking _block us in the room_?”

“I had to stall them! I don’t know what else to do!” Peter snaps.

The elephant on his chest has returned, squeezing out all his air. Once Raven’s hands are free, she makes short work of the rest of her straps while Peter tries to pound the breath out of his chest with his fist as it shudders with barely suppressed laughter.

“Pull your shit together, Peter, and help me move this filing cabinet! I’ll deal with whoever bursts through.”

Whatever. Looking at the stiff, awkward way that Raven holds herself, she can’t deal with shit. He jumps over to the cabinet and shoves it out of the way before Raven can get to it. She jerks him against the wall beside the door just as it bangs open. Five heavily armed men swarm the room. They don’t see Peter and Raven immediately and Peter uses that split second of confusion to gather Raven in his arms in a way that he will pay for later and run them the fuck out of there.

He blurs past the guards, past the hallways, past the front door, and past several hundred yards of trees before he drops Raven and collapses against a giant pine tree. His side burns like someone just stabbed him.

“What the goddamn FUCK was _THAT_!” Raven shouts.

“It was . . . a fucking . . . rescue . . . ungrateful . . . bitch,” Peter pants.

Seriously! All that trouble and she’s pissed at him?!

“I didn’t _need_ a goddamn rescue,” she hisses and here we fucking go. “I had everything planned out and under control! You’ve just fucked everything up!”

“What are you . . . talking about?! I’m free . . . you’re free, we’re not _dead_. What did I fuck up . . . exactly?”

“There are _files_ on all the other mutants that they’ve experimented on, plus all the potential ones they’re targeting! That’s proof! That’s evidence and it’s _sitting back there_ , completely unreachable!”

She punches the tree truck. Peter groans and clutches his side. Fuck life. Fuck everything about life right now. He just wants to crawl in bed and never leave.

“Keep your fucking panties on,” he says. “I’ll get your goddamn _files_.”

Raven’s eyes widen. “No! You can’t go in there now, they’ll be waiting for you!”

“They can’t catch me,” says Peter before he takes off.

Famous last words.

 

He doesn’t exactly know what the fuck happened. He reentered the complex, but all that running and freaking out and hauling Raven’s heavy ass half a mile finally caught up to him. (Honestly, he’s shocked he even made it this far, even with his unusual amount of energy.)

All he knows he’s dodging guards when all of a sudden the world starts blurring together and tilting sideways and then it goes black.

 

They keep him drugged.

It’s like the time he got shit-faced on Raven’s tequila, but a billion times worse. He was wrong, before. The world is not slow – Peter is slow. He feels like he’s underwater, batting uselessly against an endless barrage of hands and needles, while everyone else moves in fast forward, circling around him like sharks.

They strap him on a table like Raven, tight enough so the leather bites into his skin. They leave him for what feels like days – no, _months –_ in that room. No food. No water. Peter wonders deliriously if the ceiling will open to the sky and they will electrocute him like Frankenstein (he learned from Charles that Frankenstein is actually the scientist, not the monster, who doesn’t even have a name, who the fuck cares).

Finally, someone in a suit shows up, drags over a metal chair that screams against the concrete and sits down beside Peter like they’re old friends. He doesn’t look much older than thirty, and even if he didn’t kidnap mutants he would still have the face of an asshole.

“You have an extraordinary talent,” the guy says. “In the right hands, you could be utterly unstoppable.”

The Man’s voice echoes strangely in his head.

Peter should not be cracking up. There is nothing even remotely funny about getting kidnapped by crazed humans to be experimented on and probably killed. He sounds like a fucking psychopath, but he can’t stop imaging the guy’s face as a literal asshole. A talking butt. A _butthead_.

“Something funny?” The Man snaps.

Peter shakes his head, that simple movement enough to make him dizzy, and bites his lip hard enough to draw blood.

The Man leans over Peter, fingers toying with a strand of Peter’s white hair. “I’m going to give you the same choice I gave everyone else. Your talent is a gift from God, and I could use that to help all of humanity. You could join me, volunteer your services and I will ensure you are properly rewarded. Or you could refuse and suffer a long and horrible death.”

The Man’s words float through Peter’s ears like mutant butterflies – the supersonic kind, too fast to catch. (Those exist right? They should exist.) Peter understands each word individually but he can’t string them together in any kind of understanding. Kind of like Charles’ lecture on Aristotle vs Plato in Literary Criticism (whatever the fuck that means). It’s just incoherent word vomit.

Even if Peter could understand it, his answer would be the same.

“Fuck off.” The words slither and stumble out like drunk eels but judging by The Man’s eye roll, he still got the message.

The Man snorts. “Your companion said the same thing. You know, the one who’s abandoned you to torture and death?”

Where the fuck _is_ Raven? It feels like he’s been here forever, but it could only be a few hours. Even so, she was close enough to the base to have come and rescued him by now.  Did she ditch him? That fucking bitch!

Still, Peter has at least one last ace up his sleeve.

“Look man,” he slurs, “you don’t wanna fuck with me, ‘kay? My – my dad’s gonna find me, he’s gonna kick your ass. He’ll kill everyone in the building. He’s fuckin’ nuts.”

The Man smirks. “Aren’t you a little old to be depending on your old man to save you?”

Before Peter can give a witty retort, The Man pats his cheek and leaves.

 

It was total bullshit scare tactic. And it didn’t even work.

The fog in Peter’s brain starts to clear, leaving him with nothing to do but think.

Peter doesn’t like to think. He likes to _do_. But just about the only thing he can do right now is vibrate against the straps, which earns him nothing but stripes of chafing on his arms.

He is fucking stuck and the only thing left to do is reflect, as Charles calls it.

And the more Peter reflects, the more he realizes how much of a stupid _asshole_ he is.

Like, what kind of dickhead sets two people up and then bitches when all the attention isn’t on him anymore? Yeah, Erik made him feel ditched, but so what? Is Peter five years old, to let that bother him so much? They hadn’t seen each other in ten freaking years!

And even if he had valid grounds act like a jackass, how many times had Erik actually reached out and tried to chill with him, only for Peter to turn him away like a petulant fucking brat?

Erik was right. He’s not a fucking carton of Rocky Road for Peter to hoard all for himself. No wonder he got so pissed.

Let’s face it, Peter is not worth the risk and effort of rescue. He’s nothing but a giant pain in the ass to pretty much everybody, but especially to Erik. And it sucks, now that he thinks about it, that the last time Peter will ever see his dad, he was drunk and punched him.

Ugh. He is such an _asshole_. And it’s driving him mad. He’s gotta fix it. He’s gotta get the fuck out of this hell hole and make fucking _amends_ because the thought of never seeing Erik or Charles or Hank or Raven again is un-fucking-bearable.

Peter grits his teeth and vibrates so fast the table starts jittering around the room. Eventually something has to give – maybe the straps will catch on fire or come loose from the table. His arms burn from the chafing and blood starts to drip down into the crevice of his elbow. It hurts, fuck it hurts, but Peter starts to feel some give and he’s almost got it –

The door bursts open and someone closes their fist around Peter’s throat until he starts to black out. When he slows back down, they jam a needle into his throat and the world falls back underwater.

Goddamn it.

 

Just FYI, it’s kind of difficult to name your fellow mutants and their locations when someone is slowly yanking out your fingernails. It’s difficult to remember your own goddamn name under that kind of pain. (The drugs they keep him under do nothing to numb it).

But The Man keeps asking the same questions and he keeps yanking with those damn pliers and a part of Peter would give him the whole freaking world if only to make it stop but he only has enough energy to spit out one more “Fuck off.”

Then he just laughs and laughs until he laughs so hard he’s screaming and his face is wet.

No one is going to come for him.

He is going to die here.

Alone.

 

His screaming gets rudely interrupted by the squeal of tearing metal and hoarse shouts that are abruptly cut off.  The Man jerks away from his work on Peter’s hands and rips out his gun. He glares at Peter like this is all Peter’s fault. The rumbling gets louder until the screams sound right outside the door, mingled with heavy footsteps.

The man bolts and locks the door.

Which is then unceremoniously ripped off its hinges and tossed into the room like a wet rag.

Through Peter’s drugged and pained haze, what looks like some kind of crazy robot steps inside, dressed in a clashing maroon and purple with matching helmet. Long, jagged strips of metal, like spears, hang in the air on either side of him. Their tips are dark.

The man steps behind Peter and presses the shaking barrel of the gun against Peter’s temple.

“Not another step closer,” he says with deceptive calm. “Or you’ll see the inside of this kid’s – ”

All of the jagged metal spears launch themselves across the room into the man like toothpicks in barbecue wieners. ( _Mmmm_ barbecue wieners. God, Peter’s hungry. Does the robot have barbecue wieners?) Warm blood sprays across Peter’s face and hair. He hears a loud thud where the man drops.

The robot approaches the body with slow, sure steps and crouches down.

“Good morning, Stryker. I see you’ve been very busy lately, torturing my brothers and sisters. Leaving immaculately detailed evidence of your findings – that was your first mistake. Even so, I could have been persuaded to give you up to the authorities. But then you took my son.”

Blood splashes across the tiles to Peter’s side, meandering into lazy rivers.

“ _That_ was your last.”

The metal man stands up and hovers over Peter, gloved hands combing through his hair, gliding over his face, his arms, his chest, stopping at his wet and burning hands. The buckles loosen themselves and fall away.

Underneath the helmet is the familiar curve of Erik’s nose, the thin purse of his lips.

“Dad?” Peter whispers. His throat hurts.

“Can you stand?” Erik says.

“Dad?”

_Dad, how are you a robot?_

Erik sighs and scoops Peter up in his arms. Peter’s arms wrap around Erik’s neck like a baby monkey but he doesn’t even care because Erik is a robot now and can totally handle Peter’s weight. The last thing he remembers is the cool press of the helmet on his cheek and the scent of pine needles before everything goes dark.

 

Peter wakes whispering and slow, steady strokes of fingertips in his hair.

“ . . .doesn’t make any sense.”

“He’s a teenager, Erik. None of them make any sense. Don’t you remember?”

A snort. “He’s different than Alex or Hank.”

“True. Sometimes he reminds me of Sean.”

The stroking stutters to a stop for a moment before resuming its original pace. “Me too.”

Oh Satan’s hairy balls, Peter’s head feels like Carl has stuck it in a vice and is slowly squeezing it tighter and tighter, like the way he always threatened when Peter back talked him. On a somewhat lesser note his mouth feels like the fucking Sahara, complete with the dead bodies of lost souls.

Oh, and his hands are on fire.

“I think he’s waking up,” says Charles. “I’ll get Hank – he needs more painkillers.”

Peter can hear the wheelchair glide out of the room, leaving him alone with Erik as all the memories of their last encounters slowly descend upon Peter like the plague of locusts and oh fuckity fuck fuck fuck. How can one kid be so goddamn stupid and _embarrassing?_ All that steely determination to make amends has disappeared as thoroughly as Raven at the base in the face of the reality of actually apologizing.

“Peter,” Erik says softly from beside the bed.

Peter turns his head a little and tries to let out a convincing snore that convinces exactly nobody.

“I know you’re awake.”

Ugh. He would rather jump out of his third story window than face Erik right now and actually, if he timed it right and rolled the way Raven taught him too, he probably wouldn’t break anything –

 _Don’t even think about it,_ says Charles’ voice. _Erik is distraught enough as it is._

Peter cracks his eyes open to find himself in his bedroom, strong shafts of sunlight valiantly trying to fight their way through his thick curtains. Erik sits beside the bed in a chair stolen from the library. The hollow of his eyes are dark. He withdraws his hand from Peter’s hair and places it in his lap like a kid caught with his parent’s liquor.

Peter looks at Erik.

Erik looks at his hands.

The silence stretches between them, unbearable. They both open their mouths to speak at the same time.

“You first,” says Erik with a wave of his hand.

“Did you,” Peter swallows, fighting down a dry cough, “did you kill everyone? At the . . . at the place?”

Erik’s lips purse in a thin line and his fingers curl into fists. “Yes. Charles isn’t very happy with me because there is no one left alive to testify. But they hurt Raven. They hurt you. I don’t regret it.”

_You’re my son. There’s nothing I won’t do for you._

Peter’s insides squirm with guilt. He would almost rather have his fingernails torn out again than feel this way.

“I’m . . . I’m sorry. For punching you. And being . . . stupid about you . . . and Charles. I don’t know . . . what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Peter,” says Erik after a long pause. “You’re right – I’ve been neglectful. And unfairly calloused.” He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “I figured your interest in me was out of novelty or curiosity and that it would fade. Or that your discomfort with me and my past would override any desire to get to know me.” He gives Peter a crooked smile. “The fact that you _wanted_ to spend time with me, so much that you would actually get _jealous . . ._ Well that rather took me by surprise. I reacted poorly. I’m sorry.”

“Are you . . . kidding me?” Peter rasps.  “I know you’re . . . scary and stuff. But. You’re awesome. And I’m, like . . . not. I’m not smart like Charles or badass like Raven . . . and I got so mad because I’m not cool enough for . . . you to want to hang out with me.”

He bends over and coughs, his voice shorting out. Erik hands him a glass of water with a bendy straw and lets Peter take long, greedy sips. He should feel embarrassed. What the fuck is this, a confessional? And yet it feels good. Feels clean.

“I think you’re remarkable,” says Erik. “I think you’re funny and insightful and interesting. I enjoy my time with you. And I’ve missed you, these last few weeks.”

Peter fights the flush creeping up his neck. Thank God it’s dark in here.

“But I’m such a dick,” he says, batting at a peeling piece of gauze on one hand. “I didn’t think anyone would come for me.”

He can feel Erik’s Stare on him.

“I hear you say a lot of stupid things,” his dad says finally. “But that is the most idiotic by far. You’re my _son_. I care very much for you. Nothing will change that. No matter how many stupid fights we pick with each other.”

Peter takes a long, shuddering breath and wills his stupid baby tears away. “Well that’s, you know, cool.”

“In fact, I’m rather glad that we had that fight.”

“What?” Peter asks, jerking so much in his bed that he disturbs the chafing on his arms. “ _Why?_ ”

“I . . . had a similarly stupid fight with my father as a child. I had many, in fact. But this one occurred two days before we were arrested by the Gestapo. We never had a chance to speak about it, to apologize. I’ve feared ever since that he died still angry with me. But now I see that I shouldn’t have worried. The second I feared for you, all anger evaporated, as I’m sure his did.”

Even though Peter knows a lot of about Erik’s life, even more so than ninety-nine percent of people on Earth, according to Charles, the man’s tragedies still have the ability to knock the wind out of Peter.

Hank appears before Peter can really embarrass himself with crying. He gives Peter a wide smile and ruffles Peter’s hair (if Peter could slap Hank's hands away without wanting to die, he totally would. Erik ruffles hair. No one else). Then he blesses Peter with the gift of drugs, bestowing two pills into Peter’s eager hand.

“Take two and call me in the morning,” he jokes and Peter rolls his eyes but his mouth twitches.

He downs them with the glass of water Erik gives him and settles back down on his pillows. Erik regales him with tales of his adventures after their fight. But the blue bastard must have snuck in a sedative because after a few minutes Peter doesn’t remember a thing.

 

When Peter wakes up, he’s back in that horrible room, blisters on his arms from the leather straps, hands slick with blood.

It was a dream. Of course. Erik’s epic rescue, sleeping in his own bed, it was all a beautiful, agonizing lie. The Man grins at him from the doorway, dripping needing in one hand to re-sedate him, bloody pliers in the other hand like Peter hasn’t lost enough blood and fingernails as it is.

“We’ll start on your toes next,” The Man announces. “Try running then.”

Fear unlike any Peter has ever known pulls him down, a ruthless undertow. It crackles under him like cold lightning, spurring him to run, to _move, goddamn, move!_

And yet he can’t. He’s strapped down. He is stone, he is nothing. He is dead. There are straps on his arms that dig into him like fingers and a voice yelling hoarsely –

“Peter!”

The Man disappears, the room turns dark and the leather straps are hands, shaking him like they want to jar the nightmare loose.

“It’s a dream, Peter. It’s a dream,” says Erik, his voice calm and matter-of-fact. “You’re in your bedroom at Westchester. You are safe.”

Peter looks wildly around, even though he can only see the faint outline of his window in the moonlight. For a moment he thinks that he’s stuck in an endless row of dreams within dreams, the way your reflection gets trapped in-between two mirrors.

But as the minutes slowly tick by, his head clears and he knows his reality now.

“Is this what a bad trip feels like?” he whispers, trying to wipe sweat off his forehead without pissing off his fingers.

Erik switches the lamp on with a snap of his fingers. “I hope you never find out.” He holds the glass of water with the straw out as Peter takes cool, soothing sips. His throat hurts.

“What time is it?” he asks.

“Very late. Or very early, depending on your perspective.” Erik sets the cup back on the nightstand. “Your screaming nearly woke the entire house.”

Great. Now Hank _and_ Raven will know how much of a pathetic baby he is.

“Sorry,” Peter mumbles.

“Don’t be. I’m not a stranger to those kinds of dreams.”

If anything, that makes Peter feel worse. What right does he have to get all fussy over a few fingernails when Erik has gone through so much worse, alone?

“You can go back to bed,” says Peter. “I’m totally fine, man. Totally. You should go cuddle Charles or some shit, you don’t need to hover over me.”

Erik gives him a long, calculating stare and Peter feels about as transparent as packing tape. “Charles hits. In his sleep. I don’t get much cuddling in, to be honest. I can sit here until you fall asleep.”

Peter makes a show of rolling his eyes to hide his own relief. “Jesus, Dad, I’m not a baby.”

Erik cocks his head to the side. “ . . . you keep saying that.”

“Saying what? I’m not a baby? I’m not!”

“'Dad.' You called me that when I found you at the base. And you screamed it in your dream.”

Peter winces. He remembers few things from Erik’s rescue. The blood, definitely, along with thinking that Erik was a robot. And the “dad” that kept slipping out of his mouth as natural as breathing. Like it was hibernating for seventeen years.

“ . . . is it weird?”

The corners of Erik’s mouth lift. He gives a little shake of his head. “Not at all. I just haven’t heard it in a very long time.”

Since Anya. Anya probably called him Daddy and rode on his shoulders and forced him to repeat endless bedtime stories. Peter never had a Daddy. Even when Carl came along, he was only ever “Carl” and that suited the both of them just fine.

“I’ve never called anyone that,” he admits.

It’s hard to tell in the dim glow of the lamp, but the set of Erik’s mouth definitely looks smug.

“You should get some sleep. Tomorrow Hank will take another look at your hands.”

“Tell me a bedtime story.”

Erik cocks an eyebrow. “You’re a bit old for that, aren’t you?”

Peter settles further into bed, getting comfortable. “Then just tell me some of the crazy shit you’ve done. You used to hunt Nazis, right?”

His dad just gives him another one of those long looks, like he can’t believe half the shit that comes out of Peter’s mouth, before sighing and settling into the chair. “I’ve killed Nazis in over ten countries,” he begins.

Peter’s dreams still have a lot of blood in them, but they’re also a lot more fun.

 

Someone else occupies Erik’s chair when Peter wakes up: Faye Dunaway, dressed in a sleeveless turtleneck tucked into tight, high-waisted pants. She flips through a magazine, looking bored, but her sharp high heels promise pain. Peter quickly shuts his eyes and mentally calls for help.

“You are a complete fucking idiot,” Raven says, flipping a page. Peter gives up the ruse.

“Where’s Da- Erik?” He sits up in the bed, making sure to do so slowly and with exaggerated winces of pain on his face.

Raven doesn’t even look at him, eyes skimming down the article. “He went to get the files.”

“Files?”

“You know, the ones at Alkali Lake?” She lazily flips a page. “The entire reason why I went there in the first place?”

She lowers the magazine and her yellow eyes look like the fires of Hell.

“The files that we _left there_ because _you’re a goddamn moron so_ busy trying to play the hero that he almost gets himself killed?!”

“Oh. Those files,” says Peter weakly.

She stands up, magazine falling to the floor, and her whole body shifts back into its blue scales. She leans over the bed, and Peter tries to push himself as far up against the headboard as he can manage but he’s fucked, man. He’s had.

“Don’t you _ever_ pull a stunt like that again,” she hisses, face inches away from his and Hank would probably love to have a naked Raven leaning over him in bed but Peter is just trying not to shit his pants.

She reaches out (Peter flinches) and tweaks his nose to the point of pain.

“Do I have a promise?”

“Yes! Yes!” Peter cries, sounding like Bert off of Sesame Street. “I promise! Fuck!”

Her iron grip finally releases him and he takes several deep breaths.

“I’d have been fine if you hadn’t ran off and ditched me,” he mutters.

Raven’s head cocks to the side and then she leans in close to his ear. For a moment, Peter fears for his life. “If I hadn’t ran off and ditched you,” she whispers sweetly, “then who the fuck would have found Erik and organized your rescue?”

“That’s a good point,” Peter reluctantly admits.

She flicks his ear with her thumb.

“I’m making you pancakes, you little shit. How many do you want?”

In Raven-Speak, Peter guess that’s a thank you?

“Like, eighty. I’m starving.”

 

Erik comes back late that afternoon from his “business trip” and plays cards with Peter in the den. Sometimes Peter can’t hold his hand very well and the cards scatter onto the table, but Erik pretends not to see them and he doesn’t cheat even though Peter totally would in his position. Which is why he’s the son and Erik’s the dad.

Everything is going great. Charles is reading, Hank and Raven are cuddling on the couch and watching reruns of Star Trek. Peter has his dad all to himself.

And then the doorbell rings.

Hanks shifts from the couch, but Charles holds up a hand.

“I’ll get it, Hank.”

He slots a bookmark into the pages and then wheels out of the room. Erik and Raven exchange wordless looks of suspicion, which Peter dismisses because those two would pat down Santa Claus if given half the chance. But he can’t fight down his own curiosity, so he blurs to the window to get a glimpse of the car outside. A row of hedges obscure the driveway, and Peter thinks about blurring out there for a half second to find out for himself when something warm and tall and _loud_ tackles him, nearly sending them both to the floor.

He smells achingly familiar floral perfume.

Charles called his mother. That rat fucking bastard.

“Peter!” Mom shouts, right up against his ear. “Oh my God, Peter!”

Peter pats her awkwardly on the back.

“Chill, Mom. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

Her hands clutch the back of his head like has a life raft, fingers digging into his hair. She’s sobbing and everyone is watching and this is so embarrassing –

“ _Fine?_ ”

Mom  jerks back from him, holding him at arm’s length. She’s got that look on her face, the Scary Look. The kind of Look that, if she were a mutant like Peter, would portend some kind of volcanic eruption, even with the running mascara. Tempting as it is, this is not a time to remind her how much she was loving on him just a second ago.

“Everything is _not fine, Peter!”_ she hisses.“First you get put on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and then get kidnapped and _tortured_ for two days?! Is there any way to keep you from acting like a total fucking _idiot_ so you can live to adulthood?!”

Is it just Peter, or do all the women in his life seem to view him the same way?

“I was _saving_ somebody’s _life_ ,” Peter argues, probably at the risk of his own life.

Mom does the finger-jabby thing and oh he fucking hates it when she does the finger-jabby thing “Oh really? Well then, Superman, who is going to save _you_?”

Peter’s eyes instinctively flick over to Erik, whether out of acknowledgment or a desperate plead for help, and then his whole body freezes.

Erik. Erik is in the room. Mom is in the room. Together. They are in the same room together.

Holy _shit_ how did he forget about Erik?! This isn’t the fucking Parent Trap.  They both have shit tempers and long years of bitter resentment. These are two people who should _never_ be in a room together.

Maybe he can dash Mom out of there before she sees him and says anything. Maybe he can shove her in the car and drive her home and run back before they can start World War Three.

But he can’t move. Horror has seized his entire body and he can only watch, utterly helpless, as Mom  looks over at Erik standing beside the couch, who looks like someone had just hit him upside the head with a frying pan.

You could hear a fucking pin drop.

“Hello, Magda,” whispers Erik.

Peter steps closer to his mom. She has a temper, boy does she ever, but he also remembers the shock and fear on her face when Erik tried to assassinate the president. He remembers that she left Erik after watching him murder a bunch of people with a terrifying power that she could never hope to match. Peter knows Erik would never hurt her (especially with Charles around), but she doesn’t.

But Mom surprises him. She drops her hold on Peter and marches right up to Erik and he’s the one who steps back, who looks like her gaze just turned him to stone like that Medusa bitch Peter learned about. Erik is a well-trained killing machine and Mom is scaring the shit out of him.

“Was it you?” Mom demands, arms crossed. “Charles didn’t say how Peter was rescued. It was you, wasn’t it?”

Erik nods, slowly, and Peter can imagine the scrape of stone at that sound.

“That’s the second time you’ve helped him.”

“He’s my son,” Erik says and it’s a statement in his mouth but a question, a burning question, in his eyes and Peter has this horrifying thought that Mom will say no, that Peter is some product of a one night stand or some shit.

Mom’s face softens. “He must be your son because he didn’t get that kind of crazy from me.”

You can practically _see_ the relief course through Erik, warming him back to flesh and blood.

And then – holy shit – and then Mom wraps her arms around Erik and he stiffens back up into a statue. His eyes flick over to Charles, looking helpless and a little terrified, but Charles just gives him an encouraging smile. Only then do Erik’s arms slowly fold across her back, like he’s cradling a cracked egg.

“Thank you,” says Mom. “I don’t know what I would have done if something happened to him.”

Is this shit even real or is this another narcotic-induced dream?

Peter slams his toe against the coffee table leg and hisses in pain.

Yeah. It’s real.

Finally, after what feels like a thousand years, Mom steps away from Erik, looking flustered and a bit embarrassed, especially when she notices Hank and Raven sitting open-mouthed on the couch.

“Would you like to stay for lunch?” Charles offers. “We would love to have your company. The woman who raised someone like Peter must be very heroic in her own right.”

“I – thank you, that’s very kind, but I need to get back home to Wanda,” says Mom, her cheeks so red they would glow in the dark. Oh _boy._ “I would like to speak to Peter alone for a few minutes, if that’s alright.”

“Absolutely. Everyone, clear out.”

Everyone files out of the room, including Erik, though he leaves last and reluctantly, still throwing glances at Magda over his shoulder. Mom watches them leave, wiping the running mascara from under her eyes. Then she sits on the couch but doesn’t say anything for a long, long moment. Peter tries to hide how antsy this makes him, focusing on the concept of patience that Charles constantly advises. It’s _much_ harder than it looks.

Finally, Mom takes a deep breath and speaks.

“Peter, I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I did the worst thing a mother could do and I abandoned you. And you may forgive me for that, I don’t know, but I will never forgive myself.”

Fresh tears are glittering in her eyes and the red flashing alarm goes off in Peter’s head because his mom gutting him with a harpoon always hurts less than her crying. “What are you talking about? You didn’t abandon me!”

“Shut up, Peter. Yes I did. You were in trouble, you needed help, and I stood back and let someone else – a complete _stranger_ – take responsibility for you. And I’ve been doing that for – for _years_.” She buries her face in her hands, shoulders shaking.

First Peter, then Erik, now Mom. What the fuck is this, the apology Olympics? And what the fuck are you supposed to do when your parent breaks down in front of you? Like, seriously. What the fuck? In all their years together, Peter can count the times he’s seen his mom cry like this on one hand. Even _Dumbo_ didn’t make her cry like this. Can Charles come back? He would know what to say. Peter has no idea what to say and he would probably fuck it up even if he did know.

“Mom, I – Look, don’t beat yourself up.” Peter scratches the back of his head. “I’m a raging, uncontrollable asshole who does stupid shit because I’m . . . stupid. That’s not your fault. It’s my fault. I’m trying to work on it.” He sits down beside her on the couch and rubs her back. “Erik told me about Anya.”

She flinches under his hand like he electrocuted her. Peter winces, but he continues on because he doesn’t know what else to do. “You’ve been through so much crap and you still get up every morning and take care of everybody like a badass. You’re a great mom! The only stupid thing you ever did was marry Carl. But that got us Wanda, so even your stupidest decisions are still pretty smart.”

To his relief, Mom chuckles. Maybe he’s not so terrible at this.

“I don’t blame you for leaving me here, with the Feds breathing down your neck and shit. Charles has done a lot of good for me. And so has Erik. I know you think he’s a psycho,” Peter says hastily as Mom lifts her head up. “And he still is, though Charles calms him down a lot. But he’s pretty chill with me and  we sorta got a good thing going on. He’s, like, excited to be my dad?”

“Erik—” his mom begins, but then reconsiders. “He didn’t always know what to do with them, but Erik loved children. Maybe it was a little unfair to keep him from you, but . . .”

“I get it,” says Peter before she can launch into another self-guilt trip. “He killed a ton of people in front of you. It’s kind of a no-brainer.”

His mom smiles and tucks his hair behind his ear. “You’re growing up.”

This could potentially dissolve into something very mushy very fast. “How’s Wanda?” he asks.

Mom levels him a Stare. She smells the deflection immediately, but still plays along. “She got detention for punching Tommy. Know anything about that?”

Peter gives her wide-eyed innocence that they both know fools no one. “No idea. He must have deserved it.”

Mom laughs. “She misses you. She tapes your letters to the wall above her bed. Maybe she and I will come visit you next weekend. The Feds have started to lay off.”

“That sounds cool,” says Peter but inside he’s dancing. He’s going to squeeze the shit out of his sister until her head pops off.

He and his mom chill on the couch for a little while longer before she reluctantly pulls away.

“Your Aunt Sophie is watching her and I want to be home by dark,” she says, kissing the top of his head.

Peter lets her hug him for an uncomfortably long time, and he bites the inside of his cheek when she pulls out of the driveway to keep from crying. Erik’s hand feels warm and reassuring on his shoulder as they both watch the silver sedan disappear out of the gate.

Then they return to the den and Erik breaks out the ice cream and Raven busts out the Monopoly and they all play, even Charles, and Peter feels happier than he has in a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Check me out on Tumblr if you want! 
> 
> www.blarfkey.tumblr.com


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